Malcolm Sage, Detective, Herbert George Jenkins [a book to read .txt] 📗

in his hand.

"That made matters comparatively easy," continued Malcolm Sage. "The outrages were clearly not acts of revenge upon any particular person; for they involved nine different owners. They were obviously the work of someone subject to a mania, or obsession, which gripped him when the moon was at the full."

"But how did you fix the actual spot?" burst out Inspector Wensdale excitedly.

"Each of the previous acts had been either in a diametrically opposite direction from that immediately preceding it, or practically on the same spot. For instance, the first three were north, east, and south of Hempdon, in the order named. Then the cunning of the perpetrator prompted him to commit a fourth, not to the west; but to the south, within a few yards of the previous act. The criminal argued, probably subconsciously, that he would be expected to complete the square."

"But what made you fix on Hempdon as the headquarters of the blackguard?" enquired Sir John.

"That was easy," remarked Malcolm Sage, polishing the thumb-nail of his left hand upon the palm of his right.

"Easy!" The exclamation burst involuntarily from the inspector.

"You supplied me with a large scale-map showing the exact spot where each of the previous maimings had taken place. I drew a square to embrace the whole. Lines drawn diagonally from corner to corner gave me the centre of gravity."

"But——" began the inspector.

Ignoring the interruption Malcolm Sage continued.

"A man committing a series of crimes from a given spot was bound to spread his operations over a fairly wide area in order to minimise the chance of discovery. The longer the period and the larger the number of comes, the greater the chance of his being located somewhere near the centre of his activities."

"Well, I'm damned!" remarked Sir John for the second time. Then suddenly turning to Inspector Wensdale, "Dammit!" he exploded, "why didn't you think of that?"

"There was, of course, the chance of his striking in another direction," continued Malcolm Sage, digging into the bowl of his pipe with a penknife, "so I placed the men in such a way that if he did so he was bound to be seen."

Inspector Wensdale continued to gaze at him, eager to hear more.

"But what was that you said about race-memory?" Sir John had quieted down considerably since Malcolm Sage had begun his explanation.

"I should describe it as a harking back to an earlier phase. It is to the mind what atavism is to the body. In breeding, for instance"—Malcolm Sage looked across to Sir John—"you find that an offspring will manifest characteristics, or a taint, that is not to be found in either sire or dam."

Sir John nodded.

"Well, race-memory is the same thing in regard to the mental plane, a sort of subconscious wave of reminiscence. In Callice's case it was in all probability the memory of some sacrificial rite of his ancestors centuries ago."

"A case of heredity."

"Broadly speaking, yes. At the full moon this particular tribe, whose act Callice has reproduced, was in the habit of slaughtering some beast, or beasts, and drinking the blood, probably with the idea of absorbing their strength or their courage. Possibly the surroundings at Hempdon were similar to those where the act of sacrifice was committed in the past.

"It must be remembered that Callice was an ascetic, and consequently highly subjective. Therefore when the wave of reminiscence is taken in conjunction with the surroundings, the full moon and his high state of subjectivity, it is easy to see that material considerations might easily be obliterated. That is why I watched the back entrance to his lodgings."

"And all the time we were telling him our plans," murmured the inspector half to himself.

"Yes, and he would go out hunting himself," said Sir John. "Damn funny, I call it. Anyway, he'll get seven years at least."

"When he awakens he will remember nothing about it. You cannot punish a man for a subconscious crime."

Sir John snorted indignantly; but Inspector Wensdale nodded his head slowly and regretfully.

"Anyway, I owe you five hundred pounds," said Sir John to Malcolm
Sage; "and, dammit! it's worth it," he added.

Malcolm Sage shrugged his shoulders as he rose to go.

"I was sorry to have to hit him," he said regretfully, "but I was afraid of that knife. A man can do a lot of damage with a thing like that. That's why I told you not to let your men attempt to take him, Wensdale."

"How did you know what sort of knife it was?" asked the inspector.

"Oh! I motored down here, and the car broke down. Incidentally I made a lot of acquaintances, including Callice's patrol-leader, a bright lad. He told me a lot of things about Callice and his ways. A remarkable product the boy scout," he added. "Kipling calls him 'the friend of all the world.'"

Sir John looked across at Inspector Wensdale, who was strongly tempted to wink.

"Don't think too harshly of Callice," said Malcolm Sage as he shook hands with Sir John. "It might easily have been you or I, had we been a little purer in mind and thought."

And with that he passed out of the room with Inspector Wensdale followed by Sir John Hackblock, who was endeavouring to interpret the exact meaning of the remark.

"They said he was a clever devil," he muttered as he returned to the library after seeing his guests off, "and, dammit! they were right."

CHAPTER VI THE STOLEN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM I

"Well," cried Tims, one Saturday night, as he pushed open the kitchen door of the little flat he occupied over the garage. "How's the cook, the stove, and the supper?"

"I'm busy," said Mrs. Tims, a little, fair woman, with blue eyes, an impertinent nose, and the inspiration of neatness in her dress, as she altered the position of a saucepan on the stove and put two plates into the oven to warm.

This was the invariable greeting between husband and wife. Tims went up behind her, gripped her elbows to her side, and kissed her noisily.

"I told you I was busy," she said.

"You did, Emmelina," he responded. "I heard you say so, and how's his Nibs?"

The last remark was addressed to an object that was crawling towards him with incoherent cries and gurgles of delight. Stooping down, Tims picked up his eighteen-months-old son and held him aloft, chuckling and mouthing his glee.

"You'll drop him one of these days," said Mrs. Tims, "and then there'll be a pretty hullaballoo."

"Well, he's fat enough to bounce," was the retort. "Ain't you,
Jimmy?"

Neither Tims nor Mrs. Tims seemed to be conscious that without variations these same remarks had been made night after night, week after week, month after month.

"How's Mr. Sage?" was the question with which Mrs. Tims always followed the reference to the bouncing of Jimmy.

"Like Johnny Walker, still going strong," glibly came the reply, just as it came every other night. "He was asking about you to-day," added Tims.

"About me?" Mrs. Tims turned, all attention, her cooking for the time forgotten.

"Yes, wanted to know when I was going to divorce you."

"Don't be silly, Jim," she cried. "What did he say, really now?" she added as she turned once more to the stove.

"Oh! he just asked if you were well," replied Tims, more interested in demonstrating with the person of his son how an aeroplane left the ground than in his wife's question.

"Anything else?" enquired Mrs. Tims, prodding a potato with a fork to see if it was done.

Tims was not deceived by the casual tone in which the question was asked. He was wont to say that, if his wife wanted his back teeth, she would get them.

"Nothing, my dear, only to ask if his Nibs was flourishin'," and with a gurgle of delight the aeroplane soared towards the ceiling.

Mrs. Tims had not forgotten the time when Malcolm Sage visited her several times when she was ill with pneumonia. She never tired of telling her friends of his wonderful knowledge of household affairs. He had talked to her of cooking, of childish ailments, of shopping, in a way that had amazed her. His knowledge seemed universal. He had explained to her among other things how cracknel biscuits were made and why croup was so swift in its action.

Tims vowed that the Chief had done her more good than the doctor, and from that day Malcolm Sage had occupied chief place in Mrs. Tims's valhalla.

"Quaint sort o' chap, the Chief," Tims would remark sometimes in connection with some professional episode.

"Pity you're not as quaint," would flash back the retort from Mrs. Tims, whose conception of loyalty was more literal than that of her husband.

Supper finished and his Nibs put to bed, Tims proceeded to enjoy his pipe and evening paper, whilst Mrs. Tims got out her sewing. From time to time Tims's eyes would wander over towards the telephone in the corner.

Finally he folded up the paper, and proceeded to knock out the ashes from his pipe preparatory to going to bed. His eyes took a last look at the telephone just as Mrs. Tims glanced up.

"Don't sit there watching that telephone," she cried, "anyone would think you were wanting——"

"Brrrrrrr—brrrrrrr—brrrrrr," went the bell.

"Now perhaps you're happy," cried Mrs. Tims as he rose to answer the call, whilst she put on the kettle to make hot coffee to fill the thermos flasks without which she never allowed the car to go out at night. It was her tribute to "the Chief."

II

In his more expansive moments Malcolm Sage would liken himself to a general practitioner in a diseased-infected district. It is true that there was no speaking-tube, with its terrifying whistle, a few feet from his head; but the telephone by his bedside was always liable to arouse him from sleep at any hour of the night.

As Tims had folded up his newspaper with a view to bed, Malcolm Sage was removing his collar before the mirror on his dressing-table, when his telephone bell rang. Rogers, his man, looked interrogatingly at his master, who, shaking his head, passed over to the instrument and took up the receiver.

"Yes, this is Malcolm Sage—Speaking—Yes." Then for a few minutes he listened with an impassive face. "I'll be off within ten minutes—The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford—I understand."

While he was speaking, Rogers, a little sallow-faced man with fish-like eyes and expressionless face, had moved over to the other telephone and was droning in a monotonous, uninflected voice, "Chief wants car in five minutes."

It was part of Malcolm Sage's method to train his subordinates to realise the importance of intelligent and logical inference.

Returning to the dressing-table, Malcolm Sage took up another collar, slipped a tie between the fold, and proceeded to put it on.

As he did so he gave instructions to Rogers, who, note-book in hand, and with an expression of indifference that seemed to say "Kismet," silently recorded his instructions.

"My address will be The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford. Be on the look-out for messages."

Without a word Rogers closed the book and, picking up a suit-case, which was always ready for emergencies, he left the room. Two minutes later Malcolm Sage followed and, without a word, entered the closed car that had just drawn up before his flat in the Adelphi.

Rogers returned to the flat, switched the telephone on to his own room, and prepared himself for the night, whilst Malcolm Sage, having eaten a biscuit and drunk some of Mrs. Tims's hot coffee, lay back to sleep as the car rushed along the Portsmouth road.

III

In the library at The Towers three men were seated, their faces lined and drawn as if some great misfortune had suddenly descended upon them; yet their senses were alert. They were listening.

"He ought to be here any minute now," said Mr. Llewellyn John, the
Prime Minister, taking out his watch for the hundredth time.

Sir Lyster Grayne, First Lord of the Admiralty, shook his head.

"He should do it in an hour," said Lord Beamdale, the Secretary of
War, "if he's got a man who knows the road."

"Sage is sure——" began Sir Lyster; then he stopped abruptly, and turned in the direction of the further window.

A soft tapping as of a finger-nail upon a pane of glass was clearly distinguishable. It ceased for a few seconds, recommenced, then ceased again.

Mr. Llewellyn John looked first at Sir Lyster and then on towards where Lord